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Hanashiro Chomo - Karate Kumite 1905

I've been digging around trying to find a translation of Hanashiros Karate Kumite text. As far as I can tell there isn't one that's readily available and there doesn't seem to be a Japanese version either.

Has anyone managed to translate this? Written in 1905 this text predates almost anything we have written about pre WW2 Karate and would be interesting to see.

I’d love to see an English translation. It was the first book where karate was written as 空手 (empty hand) as opposed to 唐手 (Chinese hand). That alone makes it very significant.

Wastelander wrote:

I don't know that there has been a full English translation of that book, but some of Hanashiro's work can be found in Mario McKenna Sensei's "An Overview of Karate-Do"

GLynham1990 wrote:

Yeah I've got the book and it's an absolute gem! As far as I can remember the only thing by Hanashiro is the detailing of Jion kata but I'll have to double check.

On page 65 of the book there are few scans of Hanashiro’s handwritten book. So, if you can read Japanese, that’s something.

It is surprising that the text has not been translated when you consider how highly regarded Hanashiro was. I’m not sure if Japanese laws are the same, but the general rule across the globe tends to be that works remain in copyright until 70 years after the author’s death. Hanashiro died in 1945, so the text may well have gone out of copyright last year. We could therefore see Japanese and English versions becoming available if that was the issue?

as far as I know Hanashiros Text "Karate Gumite" was just a hand written essay published in August 1905 right after his return from the war. So the four pages scanned in Nakasones book is all there is. No book just those pages. I don't know if the original text still exist maybe it can be found in Hokamas Karate Museum on Okinawa. To decipher Hanashiros hand writing is another obstacle. I only know of those photographs and I don't know of any japanese or english version of that text.

In his excellent book "Karate 1.0" the author Andreas Quast cites another japanese source for that document. You could ask him if there the text was transfered or if it also only contains the scans.